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LSST: Comprehensive NEO Detection, Characterization, and Orbits
(Abridged) The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is currently by far the
most ambitious proposed ground-based optical survey. Solar System mapping is
one of the four key scientific design drivers, with emphasis on efficient
Near-Earth Object (NEO) and Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) detection,
orbit determination, and characterization. In a continuous observing campaign
of pairs of 15 second exposures of its 3,200 megapixel camera, LSST will cover
the entire available sky every three nights in two photometric bands to a depth
of V=25 per visit (two exposures), with exquisitely accurate astrometry and
photometry. Over the proposed survey lifetime of 10 years, each sky location
would be visited about 1000 times. The baseline design satisfies strong
constraints on the cadence of observations mandated by PHAs such as closely
spaced pairs of observations to link different detections and short exposures
to avoid trailing losses. Equally important, due to frequent repeat visits LSST
will effectively provide its own follow-up to derive orbits for detected moving
objects. Detailed modeling of LSST operations, incorporating real historical
weather and seeing data from LSST site at Cerro Pachon, shows that LSST using
its baseline design cadence could find 90% of the PHAs with diameters larger
than 250 m, and 75% of those greater than 140 m within ten years. However, by
optimizing sky coverage, the ongoing simulations suggest that the LSST system,
with its first light in 2013, can reach the Congressional mandate of cataloging
90% of PHAs larger than 140m by 2020.Comment: 10 pages, color figures, presented at IAU Symposium 23
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